


Making Choices

by HeddersTheOwl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Divergent, Emotional Abuse, Gen, Grief, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 09 Spoilers, Unhealthy Relationships, demon dean - freeform, heavey mentions of blood, hopelessness, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeddersTheOwl/pseuds/HeddersTheOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The voices of angels rejoice. John Winchester is saved. With relationships strained, and the Apocalypse coming faster than anyone expected, can the Winchesters, Bobby and their mysterious angel companion prevent the end of the world, or will their actions end up dooming it even further?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The voice on the line

**Author's Note:**

> My first go at a bigbang of any kind!
> 
> Super thanks to my artist [musingsofashley](http://musingsofashley.tumblr.com/) who's been patient with me, plus for doing such fabulous work! Wow! Her art can be found here
> 
> And of course to my beta/bff [ j0eycap0ne](http://j0eycap0ne.tumblr.com/) for encourging me and generally being a total sweetheart

Sam woke up in a cold sweat. He takes five deep breaths. He sits up in bed. He scrubs a hand over his face. It had been four months since Dean died and waking up is still the worst part of his day.

“Oh, good, you’re up. Finally,” Ruby comes out of the bathroom fully dressed with her long brown hair dripping on the carpet. She walks to the bed and sat next to Sam with a bounce. “Do you know how boring it is hanging around here waiting for your lazy ass to sleep all the time?” She reaches out a hand and ruffles Sam’s hair affectionately, which he rolled his eyes at but smiles softly all the same.

“It’s not lazy to sleep more than you, you don’t sleep at all,” Sam counters, catching her hand from stroking his hair and pressing a kiss to her palm. The disgusted look on her face makes him laugh. The noise was strange, unpractised. Sam hadn’t laughed properly in a long time. “What are we doing today?”

“I heard there were a few more disappearances centred around that diner in town. Might be the demons we need.” Sam nods absently. He traces the veins in Ruby’s borrowed arm with his thumb, watching as the blue lines came clearer to the surface. It had been four months since Dean died and not that much shorter since Sam started training with Ruby.

She made him feel worth something, Ruby did. After the countless fruitless attempts to get Dean back from the dead, after every powerful creature across the land had laughed in Sam’s face at the idea of him selling his soul for Dean. It was hard to come back from being told that your soul wasn’t good enough. Ruby had helped, pulling him back from the edge with her sharp wit and soft edges.

“Hey, you need a hit? Or are you just going all introspective again?” Ruby asks, tugging her arm back from Sam’s grip. He blinks, shaking his head.

“No, I don’t need any blood, I just…thank you,” Sam says, seriously, “for being here- for everything. I don’t know if I’d...thanks.”

Her smile gets wider, showing some teeth. _She’s beautiful_ , Sam thinks, and he smiles back. “You’re welcome. It’s not just for you though, there’s a world full of other puny, useless humans to save.” She stands and stretches, her hair suddenly dry, a perk of being a demon apparently. “Speaking of, we need to-”

The phone rings, interrupting her and she frowns at it, pouting a little. Sam bites back a smile at how cute her expression is. He answers before she melts the phone with the force of her glare, “Hello?”

“ _Sam? Sam Winchester?_ ” the caller sounds hoarse, their scratchy voice was painful to listen to.

“Yes, who is this?”

“ _Sam it’s me-_ ” the voice coughs and Sam winced in sympathy for their wrecked throat, _“-John. John Winchester. I’m back Sammy._ ”


	2. Prodigal Sons

John looks up at the sound of the Impala pulling in to the side of the road. She was sounding a little off, like she hadn’t had a proper tune up recently. Which was odd, Dean loved that car more than he loved himself sometimes. He pushes it to the back of his mind as he pushes himself up from the curb where he’d been sat, waiting to be picked up. The only one in the car is Sam, he can see through the windshield. Sam’s eyes are wide, and he manages to look childish despite his size. They stare at each other for a pause long enough to make John feel a prickle across the back of his neck, though that might be from sweat and dust. A fine layer of dust from the wind of the dry south over the dirt from digging up his own grave has him looking like a wild man, he knows, so he can’t fault his son’s hesitation.

Sam slowly, warily opens the driver’s side door and climbs out, holding eye contact wherever possible. He stands on the opposite side of the Impala’s hood and holds still again, poised to run, though John isn’t sure if he’d rather run towards or away from him. _He’s already run away from you before,_ comes a voice, unbidden, in his head,so John starts talking to drown it out. He holds out his arms, “Not going to give your old man a hug, Sammy?”

Sam seems to relax a little but shakes his head, reaching back into the car and pulling out a plastic bag with knotted handles. “Not until I check out a few things.” He throws the bag across to John, who catches and opens it. It contains a handful of salt, a metal flask with a cross on it, and a mirror. John raises his eyebrows and Sam explains, a hint of barely concealed excited pride in his voice, “It’s a supernatural tester kit. If you can touch the salt, drink some holy water out of the silver flask, and your reflection can be seen in the mirror, then you’re not an undead monster and I don’t have to kill you. Ru- another hunter put me onto it.”

John grunts and shrugs, throwing back the holy water and holding the salt in the palm of his hand, but pauses over the mirror. “What’s the reflection thing for? Not vampires.”

Sam grimaces at that, “Shape shifting harpies. Had a run in with a few with Dean before, uh,” he hesitates, running a hand through his hair, “before now.”

John frowns. Sam is clearly hiding something. He’d raised the boy into a life of lies, and his tells hadn’t changed. John raises the mirror anyway, showing his reflection. Sam lets out a sigh of relief, and hurries around the car. Their arms tangle into a hug, Sam bent over slightly to compensate for his height. “It’s good to see you again, son,” John says, patting Sam hard on the back and pulling back from the hug, charitably not calling out how Sam’s eyes had gone a little watery. He was always the crier when his two boys were kids, screaming he and Mary awake at every hour of the morning.

“It’s good to see you too, dad,” Sam says, swinging his arms to his sides and smiling slightly. His hair had grown out again, John notices, and he seems weighed down somehow, his posture stooped and head dipped. Something was wrong.

“So, where’s your brother?” he asks, checking the back of the Impala fruitlessly, “too busy to come find his own dad?” Dean better be doing something pretty damn important to skip out on coming to meet him. John hadn’t raised his boys to be ungrateful, and unless something had radically changed in the past year or so, Dean should know that family comes first. He hears Sam take a breath and looks back at him. Sam avoids eye contact and shrinks back from him. “Sammy,” John says sternly, “what’s going on here?”

“Dean is...” Sam trails off, frustratingly losing himself inside his own head rather than answering.

“Dean is what? Learning to hula dance? Speak up, Sammy.”

Sam looks up, startled, then a spark sudden of rage lights up his eyes, his hands tighten into fists, his pained expression turning to a glare. “Dean is dead,” he bites out, and John freezes, his thoughts halt, his world stops spinning. Sam keeps talking, regardless, “Dean is dead, he’s been dead for months. There was nothing we could do to stop it, no way to save his goddamned soul because he got the fucking stupid idea in his head that sacrificing himself for me would mean something.”

John can’t move, his feet are nailed to the floor, he barely registers himself asking: “His soul, what do you mean his soul?”

Sam laughs, actually laughs, though it sounds more like a sob, “He sold it to bring me back to life. Now he’s in Hell and I’m left alone, again. Like father like son right, dad?”

John balks. Sam was hardly one to talk about being left alone. He was the one always running off, first to Six Flags, then to Stanford. “You need to watch your tone there, boy,” John threatens, but Sam just scoffs at him again.

“Why should I? I don’t care what you think of me, you left us. For the _second time_ you left me and Dean to work things out by ourselves. What’d you expect when you came back, a welcome party?”

“Sam Winchester, you listen to me-”

“No, you listen,” Sam interrupted, raising his voice over John’s. He was getting overexcited, obviously, he should know not to cut off his elders. Not that it’d ever stopped him as a kid, getting into screaming fits over the tiniest thing. “It’s been years, dad, and we had to face demons, and yellow eyes, and trying to fight off freaking Hell Hounds without you.” Sam reaches under the neck of his shirt and fishes out an amulet, Dean’s amulet. He shakes it a few times to make his point, then pauses just to look at it, seeming to deflate. “Dean is dead,” he repeats, quieter this time, tracing the edges of the golden face with his large fingers.

John sighs and rubs a hand over his face. The new knowledge feel like a burning hot poker stabbed into his heart. But then, he already had a few wounds on there anyway, some quite literal when he was in Hell. What was one more. He was so tired, and he’d only been back on the surface for a couple of hours. “So,” he says, electing to move past their last conversation, “where are you staying?”

\--

_“So,”_ Ruby’s voice says through the phone, affectionately mocking as always, _“How was the meeting with daddy dearest?”_

Sam sighs and glances at the door to the bathroom, where John was currently taking a shower. He traces the ugly, brown-yellow flower pattern on the bedspread of the motel bed he’s sat on- a different motel to the one he’d stayed in with Ruby- with one hand, holding his phone in the other. “Not too great,” he admits, “I may have...shouted at him a bit.” Ruby’s laughter rolls through the speaker and Sam pulls a face. “Hey, listen, we never got on at the best of times alright. It’s definitely him though.”

_“Want me to come over, talk some sense into him? Meet the parents or whatever? I’m great at family dinners.”_ Sam smiles at the image, forcing his dad into a suit and tie, awkward small talk about the weather with his- with Ruby about the weather, trying to prevent either of them revealing that Ruby is a demon.

“Yeah I’m going to go with a ‘no’ on that idea, entertaining as you’d find it.”

_“Always ruining my fun, Winchester. No setting things on fire, no stealing from churches, no meeting your dad, it’s enough to make a girl feel unwelcome.”_

Sam rolls his eyes, even though Ruby can’t see him. “I don’t even know how he’s back, I don’t think introducing you would be a great start. Not that getting mad at him was a particularly good one anyway.” The good mood he’d felt from joking around with Ruby faded, like the flowers on the bed sheet. He clears his throat, hating that he sounds vulnerable, “Got any ideas about that? He can’t just leave Hell. It’s Hell.”

Ruby sighs in a crackle of static _, “I’ll look into it for you, because I’m such a wonderful person and you were about to ask.”_ Sam ducks his head sheepishly. Ruby was good to him. _“Just, tell me if you get any suspects, Watson. Even asking around about powerful beings is dangerous, don’t poke your nose in where it could get cut-”_ The phone goes dead. The windows rattle violently in their panes, the lights get brighter and brighter until the bulbs explode, a high pitched whine drives into Sam’s head like an ice-pick. Covering his ears doesn’t help, nothing helps, his whole head hurts, he cried out. Then, it stops, just as suddenly as it begun.

Sam blinks a few times, trying to rid his vision of large white spots. He stands and sways, disoriented. “Dad?” He calls out, hoping he wouldn’t have to cross over to the bathroom with his head all full of cotton. Luckily, John opens the door, fully clothed, and moves over to him. He pushes Sam’s shoulder to get him sat back on the bed, and Sam complies. “That happened to you too, right?”

“The whining noise and the lights? Yeah. It happened before at the gas station.” Sam looks up sharply, but John is looking around at the shards of glass and patting Sam’s shoulder absently. He doesn’t seem at all affected, while Sam’s head is killing him. “I think we need to locate whatever took me back and get rid of it. Don’t worry Sam, we’ll work this out.” John picks up Sam’s car keys from the counter where he’d left them, “Just so long as some old friends are still friendly.”

\--

Pamela Barnes is a little scary. That’s what Sam determines after about five minutes in her company. Not only is her whole house filled with seriously fire-hazardous lit candles, her smile is slightly ferocious, and her hugs are...better left unmentioned. She hadn’t been surprised at their arrival, not even with the long-dead John Winchester back from the dead. But then, she’s a psychic, so that’s only to be expected.

She grins sharply in the dark of the room as they hold a séance, calling out for whatever _Castiel_ is until she screams. The room lights up with her eyes burning brighter than her candle collection, then all of them blow out. She slumps forward in her seat, and doesn’t look up until Sam’s at the door of the room, with John already in the car.

“Sam,” she says, her voice having lost its flirty wildness, completely serious for a few moments, “You have a choice to make. Two heads are better than one.” She’s unerringly looking straight at him, despite her blindness.

Sam pauses, his hand on the door frame, wracking his brain, before finally admitting, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You will,” she replies, then flashes a grin, regaining her sharp joviality, “Now get your cute butt outta here Winchester, before I decide to keep you.”

\--

Sam’s sneaking out. John knows this because he may be older than he was, he can still hear his son trying to be subtle about closing the front door at 3am. Actually, that’s not accurate, if he’d actually been asleep as Sam had intended he’d never have heard a thing. Unfortunately for Sam, John is adept at pretending not to have awoken from a nightmare and be lying awake and trembling with the feeling of hot blood on his hands and of barbed wire twisting around his limbs like a constricting snake. He’d had plenty of nightmares his whole life after Mary, and two small sons he had to teach to be men on his own. So, yeah, he’d had a lot of practice.

He waits until he hears the Impala’s engine start up, watching through the peep-hole to see the black smudge of car turn left out of the parking lot, then hurries down to the nearest car, breaking into it and hotwiring as quickly as he can. He’s a little rusty, but he’d been doing this for years.

He manages to catch the Impala just as she turned into the main part of town, the dinky high street with thrift stores up one side and fancy coffee joints down the other. He covertly follows to a 24-hour diner, parking a ways down the street rather than in the lot. One half of it is dark, blinds drawn across the windows to only let out chinks of light around the edges. Sam gets out of the car, glancing around before entering the diner, turning the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’, then moving out of sight. Intrigued, John scurries across to the window, keeping low and peeping through the closed shutters. Sam is talking to a woman with bobbed hair and a red service uniform, his body tensed for a fight.

John can’t hear what they’re saying, but he does hear a muffled version of the woman’s chocked scream when Sam raises his hand, black smoke pumping from her mouth and coalescing around her feet. The smoke seems to come for an eternity, until finally the woman collapses to the floor. Sam pants, his whole body rising and falling with the force of it, his hair sticking up with sweat when he runs his hands through it. Another woman, with long dark hair, crosses into John’s line of sight and checks the pulse of the woman on the ground. She turns with a nod and a grin, and Sam scoops her into his arms and spins her around, then kisses her on the mouth.

John feels a wash of cold. He doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t want to think, about what Sam’s motives could have been, standing and charging through the glass doors of the diner and stands, seething, before his stunned looking son. “What in the hell,” he grinds out, “was that?”

Sam just stares at him, stock still, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. He swallows a few times, but still says nothing, apparently too shocked that John was there to make a sound. The woman, who is looking a cross between amused and annoyed steps in, “It was him saving someone’s life, genius.”

“Ruby!” Sam whispers, breaking out of his surprise and shooting her a scandalised look.

“What? It’s the truth,” she says, crossing her arms and looking challengingly at John, “Sam has been saving people far more effectively with me than he has ever done with both you and Dean put together.”

John snarls, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, young lady, but whatever twisted game you’re playing with my son, it stops now.”

Ruby laughs bitterly, “I’m not playing any games. Sam needs me, and he actually likes me too. And unlike someone in the room, I respect Sam’s choices. He wants to help people, I help him help people. So less of the blaming the nearest woman if you please,” she turns to Sam, eyebrows raised, “You guys can stay here and measure your dicks or whatever all you like, I’m going to go help that woman over there to the hospital.” The two Winchesters spared a glance to the woman, who was waking up, groaning quietly and clutching her side. She limply held on to Ruby’s shoulders as she picked her up, her eyes glazed over. Ruby glared at both of them as she walked out, the electronic buzz of the door sounding too loud in the tense silence.

Sam’s eyes flick nervously from his dad to the door, then he opens his mouth to speak but John beats him to it. “I don’t know what is going on here, and you know I don’t like not knowing. That looked like psychic stuff again for me. You working for Yellow Eyes or something?”

Sam’s eyes widen and he chokes in a breath, “Dad, no, of course not. How could you think that I’d...Yellow Eyes is dead.” He looks incredulous and hurt, horrified even. John blinks.

“Yellow Eyes is...”

“Dead. Yeah.” Sam nods, his features smoothing out in an obvious attempt to conceal his hurt. John feels like he missed a step going down the stairs, as Sam continues, “The Hell gate opened and Dean shot him with the colt while Bobby, Ellen and me shut the doors.”

John blinks again, then, hysterically, starts to laugh. It starts out slow, but builds up into bordering on painful, folding in two and clutching at his knees. Yellow Eyes, dead. Almost half his life spent searching for and trying to kill him, and now he’s dead anyway without his input. What was the point of all that time, all those years, wasted. Mary’s killer had been destroyed, her spirit avenged by her son. What was the point of John even being here anymore? He’d thought this resurrection was supposed to be some big chance to finish off the big bad in his life, but he’s already dead. His breath comes in painful bursts, his laughter sputtering off into hiccupping sighs. Two of his reasons for getting up in the morning were already dead.

He straightens, wiping the tears that’d sprung from his laughing fit, and looks back up at Sam, who is looking both worried and a little afraid. John decides to cut him a break, saying, “You know what kid, after news like that, I won’t be listening to anything else you say tonight. Let’s just head back to the motel, and sleep it off.” Sam still looks worried, but his relief is evident. John catches his shoulder before he walks out of the door first, to clarify that, “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, mind. I will be getting an explanation for,” he waves his other hand towards the dark side of the diner, “whatever that was tomorrow.”

Sam’s shoulders sink and he nods, resigned. John pats his arm again, before gesturing Sam to the door to leave first. _Yellow Eyes,_ he thinks, feeling almost dizzy with it, _dead_. Maybe being brought back to life wasn’t such a bad thing.


	3. Done Right

Sam is so screwed. He can hear his dad’s heavy breathing from the other bed, apparently asleep, but that’s what Sam’d thought earlier when he snuck out to see Ruby. Now he knows about the psychic stuff, and Sam was pretty sure he wouldn’t exactly be thrilled when he found out about what was fuelling it. He dreads the morning, but wishing it away doesn’t prevent the sun from rising. It’s around a quarter to seven when John grunts and sits up in bed, turning to Sam. Sam sits up too, and they just look at each other by the light pouring through the ugly and ineffective motel curtains. Sam is so very, very screwed.

“So,” says John, his voice rough with sleep, “care to explain?”

“Well,” Sam hesitates, stalling for time, “what do you want to-” Sam’s phone rings and he dives for it, answering after the first ring, blessing whoever was calling in his head for throwing him a lifeline, “Hello?”

“Well hello to you too there Sam,” answers Pamela, obviously smiling around her words, “Now don’t you sound pleased to hear my voice.” Sam can almost hear the accompanying wink.

“Pamela? How did you get this number?” Sam glances at his dad, who’s looking just as confused as Sam is.

Pam just hums, saying, “I’m a psychic, in case you forgot that after seeing me yesterday. Unless you were too busy checking me out to actually listen to my words, I wouldn’t blame you for that.” Sam feels his cheeks go pink and coughs a few times.

“Why are you calling, Pam? Are you okay, is uh, Castiel there?”

“Ah, I’m alright. This is more of a business than a call actually Sam. I spoke to Bobby just after you left. Says you haven’t been to see him in a while.” Sam looked down uncomfortably, picking at a loose thread from his covers. “I’m not going to tell you to go see him, because it’s up to you, I just felt like you should know there’s been some pretty spooky stuff happening around his house lately. He’d never ask, but I think he could do with some help.”

“What kind of spooky stuff?”

“Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it. Don’t want to give up all my secrets. Bye Sam,” she hangs up abruptly, leaving Sam to frown at his phone, confused.

“What was all that about?” John asks, making Sam jump. He’d forgotten John was even there. Sam shrugs, dropping his phone on the bedside table again before getting up and repacking his duffle bag.

“We need to go see Bobby about something, apparently,” Sam says, heading to the bathroom, “Seems we have a case. I guess the explanation has to wait.” He shuts the door before John can reply, hoping he’ll just forget about it and not ask on the drive. Unlikely, but a guy can dream.

\--

Bobby opened the door with a shotgun in his hand and a scowl on his face. He stares down John until Sam clears his throat, “Uh,” Bobby’s grim look switches to Sam, who ducks his head at its intensity, “Hey Bobby.”

Bobby looks at him a full minute longer in complete silence, before rolling his eyes and pushing the door open fully with his foot and heading back through the cluttered hall without a backward glance. John followed confidently, jerking his head for Sam to come through too. They end up in the kitchen, where Bobby immediately goes for a beer from the fridge and sits down heavily.

“So Pamela says you have a ghost problem?” Sam tries, wincing when Bobby slams the bottle down on the table. Bobby grunts in response and surveys the two Winchesters in his kitchen, evidently unimpressed with what he sees. Sam doesn’t like the silence, it makes him feel like he’s nine years old again after accidentally using John’s rock salt in a school cooking project, then replaced the stocks with sugar. Not only had his cookies been totally ruined, John had to go to the hospital after being attacked by a ghost, and Dean wouldn’t speak to Sam for the whole rest of the day.

“Do you-”

“Four months,” Bobby finally says, darkly, directing the full force of his glare at Sam, “four months since Dean died and you only come over _now?_ ”

Sam cringes, and John cuts in, “Is this really the time, Bobby? Maybe instead of whining about getting any visitors these days in your old age, you can tell us what’s going on around here.”

They look at each other challengingly, Bobby tightening his grip on his beer bottle, John raising his eyebrows, Bobby narrowing his eyes. Then, quite out of the blue to Sam at least, Bobby quirks his lip into a half smile and waves a hand to the fridge. “You get yourself a drink and sit down, you stubborn son of a gun. Not even death could hold onto you could it, typical Winchester,” Bobby glances up at Sam, still hovering uneasily by the door. “You too kiddo, unless you got someplace else to be.”

Sam smiles reflexively and sits, looking from Bobby to John concernedly. Last time John’d been here he’d been chased off the property with a gun to his back, and the last time Sam had seen Bobby he’d been tearing through his book collection, feverishly trying to find a way to break into Hell to get Dean out. When Bobby realised that was Sam’s objective, he’d banned him from the library and told him to ‘grieve properly, damn it’. Bobby’s house was useless to him without the books, so Sam had just left without a word. He had been meaning to drop him a line but he’d been so busy, with Ruby and demons- and Bobby definitely wouldn’t understand about Sam needing to destroy Lilith, he’d call it a crusade, a pointless revenge plot, that he’d end up dead just like his dad. He wouldn’t understand that Sam had to do this. No one but Sam could ever do this.

“Now, I’m going to have to lose Pam’s number if she keeps spreading this around, but you heard right,” Bobby says, pulling Sam out of his reverie.

“Thought you had this place warded against pretty much everything Bobby. Not been doing proper maintenance since I dropped off the map?” John ribs, raising his eyebrows and sipping his beer when Bobby shoots him a look.

“Of course I keep the wards up to date, I’m not an idiot. That’s what makes this haunting business so weird,” Bobby leans forward conspiratorially, “Far as I can tell, it’s not just happened to me. Remember Olivia Lowry? The one with the closet?” John nods, though Sam hadn’t heard of her before, and Bobby moves on before he can ask, “Found dead in her home yesterday, with EMF going crazy around the site. A whole bunch of other hunters got ganked too, we’re being run down.”

“What do you think is causing it?” Sam asks, glad that Bobby had stopped glaring at him at any movement.

Bobby sighs, and reaches back to the pad of paper on the counter. “Hell if I know, boy. Only thing we got is this symbol Olivia managed to draw on the floor in her blood.” He shows them his version, which looked like a black diamond, the points holding four stick figures with their arms raised.

Sam snaps his fingers, “I’ve seen that before! Hang on,” He snatches the pad from the table and runs to the library, trying to remember which section he’d been in when he’d seen it. He’d been researching opening Hell, so it had to be... under the desk. “Got it!” he calls, flipping through the book as he makes his way back to the table. He puts the book flat on the table, John and Bobby pulling closer to read. “They’re called The Witnesses, and they appear in the form of a person who you feel guilty about the death of, if you were directly involved,” Sam grimaces, “Figures they’d come after hunters.”

“Says here they can’t be stopped by regular means,” Bobby says, pulling the book closer and batting John’s hand away when he tries to pull it back towards him. “I think I could put together a spell to-”

John rises from his chair, sharply, staring at the doorway to the room. Sam turns too, and his heart stops. Mary. She leans against the doorframe, her left hand pressed against her abdomen over her nightdress. She smiles serenely at John, reaching out her other arm towards him. Sam sees John take a step towards her around the table out of the corner of his eye, but his main focus is on his mom. She had long, curled blonde hair, and a few delicate wrinkles. She’s beautiful.

John takes another step, then Bobby grabs him, pulling him back into his seat. John glares at him, but Bobby shakes his head. “That’s not something you want to do John. That’s not your wife.”

“John,” Mary says softly, pushing off the door frame and taking a step into the room, “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” John asks, looking up at her with wonder in his eyes. Bobby tightens his grip on his arm.

“Why did you let me die?” She moves her hand, revealing the red hole in her dress. Blood started leaking where her hand had been, forming a large red patch. “You left me, alone, in that room, you looked at me and you didn’t save me,” her voice rose with every word, until she was shouting, “You left me! You left!”

Sam can’t look, he can’t stand to see this apparition of his mother not even glance at him, or acknowledge him in any way. He looks to the other door to the kitchen, and it’s not a better view there either. “Jess?” he says, seeing his dead girlfriend stood behind the glass window. “Jess I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry I didn’t mean for this to happen to you.” She vanishes and reappears just inside it instead, and talks along with Mary’s tirade, so there’s a duet of ‘you left me to die’ ringing about the kitchen. Make that a trio, another voice that Sam doesn’t recognise joins the mix, coming from somewhere behind him, but he sees Bobby’s face drain of colour so it must be from his past.

More of them come, slowly advancing a step at a time, through the walls and floors or just appearing in the midst of the throng. Sam recognises Victor Henriksen, Ronald Resnick and Madison before he stops name-checking. There’s no space in his head to think properly, only the sound of shouted accusations, the rattle of windowpanes and a vaguely familiar high-pitched whining noise. Jess reaches out her hand to touch his face, he shuts his eyes, and then-

And then a flash of light, so bright Sam can see it through his eyelids. The voices and the noise stop completely, leaving quiet, save for the creaking of wood. He blinks his eyes open and there, stood on the table, arms outstretched and head tilted back. The Witnesses were gone. The man was wearing a tan trench coat over a suit and tie. Bobby, getting up from where he’d apparently fallen on the floor, coughs and raises his eyebrows at the man.

“Not to sound ungrateful for you stopping the Witnesses or anything,” he says, pulling a gun out from the drawer next to him, “but who the Hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” The man grins widely and hops off the table, landing a little off centre but righting himself quickly.

“Ah, yes,” the man says, a little dreamily, “time for the big opening speech. Hope you’re ready guys!” He does a incongruous thumbs up, still altogether too cheerful for the aftermath of the painful experience his audience had just been through. The man clears his throat and dons a serious expression, deepening his voice as far as it can apparently go.

“My name is Metatron, and I am an angel of the Lord,” Metatron looks around at the gathered hunters, beaming, “And this is Apocalypse is going to be done right.”


	4. Going to the dogs

 

“So,” Sam rubs a hand over his face, “To sum up, there’s an Apocalypse going on.”

“No,” Metatron says, sighing dramatically, “There _will_ be an Apocalypse going on unless you stop Lilith breaking the seals to Lucifer’s cage.” They’re slumped about in Bobby’s sitting room, three hours after the Witnesses incident. It had long since gone dark outside. John had left to smash something in the yard after the very first explanation, leaving Bobby and Sam to try and get the minute of the whole Apocalypse debacle sorted out. Metatron had taken Bobby’s most comfortable chair for himself, leaving Bobby and Sam on the sofa.

“Right, sorry,” Sam says sarcastically, “Unless we four can stop Lilith from breaking the seals. Of which there are 600, and she only needs to find 66. So we can’t. So there’s going to be an Apocalypse.”

Metatron pouts, “No need to be so pessimistic, Sam. You’ve got the strength of Heaven on your side too, remember.”

Bobby snorts, “Yeah, you inspire so much confidence in us. Nice trench coat by the way.”

“I’ll have you know I fought hard for this coat,” Metatron says, flapping the coat-tails around his legs childishly.

“And this Castiel, the one who pulled John out of Hell and burned out Pamela’s eyes, he’s also working for Heaven? I gotta say it sounds more impressive to have pulled a soul out of Hell than dissolved some ghosts,” Bobby says, much to Metatron’s obvious chagrin.

“No ordinary angel could have just destroyed them like that you know, those were Witnesses!”

“Yeah, and I sure witnessed some bloody crime scenes, which begs the question, why couldn’t you have come earlier and saved them too?”

“Does nobody here appreciate good dramatic timing?” Metatron complained, “Even your beloved Castiel couldn’t have done better, and he’s had more sudden exits than The Dark Knight.” At their nonplussed expressions, Metatron pauses, “He’s a version of Batman, comes out in a few years and- you know what it doesn’t matter.”

Sam shook his head, then stood up and cracked his back. “Well,” he says, looking from Bobby to Metatron and back again, “Our best bet is trying to kill Lilith, right? She’s the one breaking the seals, so logically we should try to get to her.” Sam feels a waft of air from where Metatron was sitting. Emphasis on the _was_ because he’d vanished without a trace.

Sam and Bobby look at the spot where he’d been sat silently, until Bobby scoffs. “I’m far too sober for this crap. You do whatever you want Sam, I’m going to get a scotch before today gets any weirder.” He walks off, muttering about angels and Apocalypses and the Winchesters always getting him pulled into the dumbest scrapes imaginable, until the door shut to the kitchen.

Sam waits a moment to see if he was going to come back, then pulls out his phone. “Ruby,” he says when she picks up, “What do you know about angels and seals?”

\--

John crouches with his head in his hands next to a beat up old Mini. He’d been intending to beat it up even more with the heavy wrench beside him, but when he actually got out here he found that he was to weary to do anything. He wishes he was too weary to feel anything too. The Apocalypse. That is some messed up crap. If he’d known, in Hell, that he’d wake up to this- to having one son dead, the other into some kind of dark magic and the goddamn Apocalypse- he wonders if he’d have opted to stay down there. Then he thinks of the agony, the cold, the whole world condensing to his pain and no, he doesn’t wonder. He would have agreed to anything down there. And he did.

He lets out a shaky breath. _It doesn’t matter_ , he tells himself, rubbing his thumbs to his forehead, _I held out as long as I could, longer than most would, longer than anyone, someone else would have tortured those souls anyway_. He tries very hard to believe it.

He feels movement nearby and calls, “Sam, you better not be trying to sneak out again.” He lowers his hands from his eyes to see Sam looking startled, clutching the keys to the Impala in one hand, with his phone in the other. Evidently he hadn’t seen John sitting there. Sam sticks his chin out, obviously gearing up for an argument, but John waves his arm. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me, I’m not looking for a fight.”

“Right,” Sam says, looking slightly unnerved, “Yeah, uh, okay.” He looks suspiciously at John, who simply gazes back. “Does that mean I can go?”

John snorts, “You’re an adult Sam you can go whatever you want. Pretty sure you figured that one out when you ran away to college.” Hm. Maybe he was looking for a fight after all.

Sam grit his teeth and stood his ground, “I would have come back if you’d let me, dad. I wasn’t the one who said the door was closed, that wasn’t on me.”

“You were running out on our family, what did you expect me to do? Just lay there and take it? Just let you get away with not fulfilling your duty to the innocent people of the world?”

“I was a kid, dad! I didn’t have a responsibility to anyone, least of all the whole world! Why does their innocence matter more than mine did?” Sam clenched his fists and ground his heel into the ground, and started talking again before John could respond, “And don’t you dare give me that crap about doing the best you could or it being a bad situation, because what about Adam?” John started. How the Hell did Sam get to know about Adam? Sam could see he’d hit a nerve and honed in on it, “Adam got to have a dad who took him to baseball games and ate pizza on his birthday, he got to be normal, why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t Dean? Why couldn’t we just be kids, be people without this huge weight of your responsibility dragging us down?”

Sam took a deep breath, and John recognised that face, the one where Sam had a game changer in his hand that he couldn’t wait to play just to see John’s devastation. “Maybe it would have been better if you’d just gone to Hell as soon as I was born. Maybe then mom would still be alive.”

And that was it. Sam turned and walked away, got into the car and drove into the night, not looking back, not caring that he’d reaffirmed every fear that John had ever had about how he was raising his sons. He’d just gone, and the last shards of John’s heart had probably gone with him.

\--

Sam seethes. He drives the Impala well over the speed limit and he doesn’t care. He just has to get away from that place and all the pain, the guilt, the horrible prophecies. He parks haphazardly at the abandoned barn Ruby had told him to meet her at and all but sprints into it, meeting her at the door and melting onto her, breathing hard.

“You okay there Sam?” She asks, running her fingers through his hair soothingly. Sam shakes his head and squeezes her closer, burrowing his face into her neck and staying that way until his fingers stop shaking, until he feels he can move without collapsing on the floor and crying over her sensible shoes. Ruby seems to sense when he’s ready, because she pushes him gently back and looks up into his eyes, resting their foreheads together.

“Sorry,” Sam says, caught in her gaze like a butterfly on a spider web, “I’ve just had a really bad day.”

Ruby smiles up at him, “Well,” she says, standing on tip-toe to kiss him on the lips, then grabbing his hand to pull him into the barn properly, “I’ve had a very productive one, so I have some news that might just brighten yours.”

She tugs him over to an ornate looking box made of dark wood stood on a long table. She runs her hands around the designs on it, then pushes it towards Sam for him to open, excitement clear in her eyes. Sam pushed open the lid to find... “The colt?” He pulls it out of the box and checks the inscriptions around the gun, “Where did you get this?”

Ruby pushes herself up onto the table next the box and swings her legs back and forth, smiling smugly, “I just so happened to be owed a favour from Lilith’s consort, Crowley.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, “By which you mean, you stole it?”

“You know me so well. And...speaking of knowing,” Ruby bites her lip, “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to tell you this but...”

“What, what is it?” Sam wasn’t sure he could take any more bad news today, but he was a sucker for punishment. Ruby fidgeted with her fingernails until Sam put a hand over hers.

“I’ve heard talk from other demons that the whole Apocalypse thing? It’s happening way faster than they thought it would,” Ruby says, darting a look up at Sam’s face and sticking there, “Like, months faster. Crazy fast. Seals are being broken all over the place before they can even get to them, fast. It shouldn’t be this quick, something is happening, something huge.”

Sam’s heart freezes over. That’s the only way he can explain the chill in this veins. “How long do you think we have left? A few weeks?”

“Sam, the way it’s looking, we’d be lucky to have a few days.” Sam shivers, hanging on to Ruby’s ever word like a ship clings to its anchor, “Sam, listen, we have to increase out training, okay? The only way I can think of to stop this whole mess from going to the dogs is if we keep trying. Any means necessary, you got that?” He nods. She’s right. He’d drink a lake of demon’s blood if it meant saving the world- a whole sea of it. Not for himself, because there were so many ghosts out there today to prove that he shouldn’t have anything for himself. He always runs away from his problems, apparently, so it’s time to do some running towards them.

He looks at Ruby when her hand touches his cheek. “What do I need to do?” he says, and her answering smile is like benediction.

\--

Bobby finds John the next morning, hunched over, shivering violently and clutching a wrench next to a distinctly intact Mini Cooper. He looks down at his old friend, though ‘friend’ might be stretching it a bit, and sighs. He hauls him to his feet, and wraps his coat over John’s shoulders. “Come on old man,” he says, pushing him toward the house, “If I let you die of hyperthermia right before the end of the world I’ll never let you live it down.”


	5. A bloody dawn has broken

Five days after the first seal is broken in Hell, the sixty-fifth is broken too. Sam hears about it from one of the demons that tries to taunt him before he sends it back down to Hell. He’s had no sleep, no food, nothing but demon blood for three of those days. He hasn’t needed them. He’d be worried about that but he’s too keyed up. The blood helps Sam think better, faster, it lets him be stronger. It also had the bonus of letting him release his anger in a constructive way.

He feels it inside of him, his rage, like a coiled snake which he doesn’t have to suppress, he doesn’t have to strangle it. He feeds it instead, with demon after demon calling him freak or monster or _master_.

Sam doesn’t know where Ruby’s been getting these demons, but there seem to be an infinite supply. Unlike the seals. Sam takes a swig of demons blood from one of the large cartons next to him. He doesn’t know where Ruby got those either, or when. Time doesn’t really have much effect when he’s in the barn. That’s where he is, the abandoned barn, sat on a bale of hay, exorcising demons. The hay prickles his legs, everything feels itchy. There’s so much to focus on. Ruby puts her hand on his arm and he looks up. “It’s time,” she says. Time to kill Lilith.

Sam nods and stands, feeling weighed down with three days worth of demon blood, constant practice, and the knowledge that if he doesn’t destroy Lilith in this one final shot, then everything would be ruined for everyone. No pressure then.

They take the Impala to a church, St. Mary's Convent. “She’s definitely here?” Sam asks, flushing when Ruby shoots him a look that just screams _obviously_ , “Right, right, okay.”

“Come on, Sam, don’t tell me you’re getting performance anxiety now,” Sam squirms in his seat, and Ruby rolls her eyes. “You been doing this for days, you know you can do it. I believe in you, okay, and I’m a demon. We don’t do believing all that often.”

Sam nodded, and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I can do this.” He gets out of the car and just looks up at the building for a few minutes. Ruby sighs so hard, it ruffles Sam’s hair from the other side of the Impala.

“Do you even remember what she did to you? To your family? Dean? Ringing any bells? This whole mess, this is all her fault, you do know that, right?” Ruby steps walks around the car pulling Sam along with her to the front of the church. “Sam, she has destroyed almost everything you care about. You have one shot at revenge here, and you have to take it.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, thinking of his dad doubled over in laughter when he found out Yellow Eyes had died. He wants that kind of relief, he needs it. “Yeah,” he says again, stronger, “ Yes. Let’s kill this bitch.”

\--

“Just run that bit by me again, Metatron,” Bobby says, and John groans, rubbing his hands over his face. He needs a drink, or a case, or anything to get this lunatic not to start talking again.

“He’s been running it by us for three days, Bobby. I’m the Michael Sword, and when Lucifer gets free from the cage-”

“ _If_ he gets free of the cage,” Bobby cuts in obstinately, “Sam might be able to stop it. That boy has hidden depths, underestimating him has never done anything any good.”

“That’s assuming he’s not just run off to spend time with his girlfriend to have a few days left in the sun before the Apocalypse begins,” John bites back, “It’s not like he’s ever been known to do any different.”

“That’s a load of crap, John, and you know it. Or you would know it if you’d been around for the year we had before Dean died. That kid worked his ass off trying to find a way out of it and it broke his damn heart that he couldn’t. I have never seen dedication like that, so you can stop attacking Sam for something that happened _years_ ago and start loving your son for who he is now!”

“Are you saying I don’t love my kids? I gave them everything I had, I love them so much it kills me,” John thunders, but Bobby puts a hand on his arm and shakes his head.

“Sam doesn’t want you dead, he wants you to be there for him. And maybe start listening to him one of these days.”

John huffs, letting his hackles fall. “How am I supposed to listen to him when he doesn’t tell me anything anymore? We haven’t even seen him since he ran off days ago. The last thing he said to me was that he wished I was dead.”

“Look, I don’t care what who said to whom. We can’t change the past-” Metatron coughs around the cookie he’d stolen from Bobby’s pantry “-but we can change how things are going to be.”

“Actually,” Metatron says, apparently recovered from his cookie emergency, “you can’t.” He shrugs at the glares they both send him, “Not liking it doesn’t make it not true, sorry fellas. John will be the Michael Sword, Sam will be Lucifer, and there’ll be a battle to the death.”

“You know,” says Bobby, “I’m beginning to like the sound of this Castiel guy more and more every day.”

\--

Sam kills Lilith, and there’s no one there to stop him, no one to even try. Only Sam, the body and Ruby, who is laughing.

“I can’t believe it. You actually did it,” Ruby clasps her hands together and her face splits in a huge grin. Sam grins back, letting out a shocked laugh of his own. He’d done it. Singlehandedly prevented the end of the world. People were going to wake up safe tomorrow because Sam Winchester had saved the world. He’d done it. Who cares if you’re a freak if you saved the whole world. “You actually broke the last seal.”

Sam laughed. “You mean, stopped the last seal from breaking,” he corrected, “Don’t want to mix those two up.” But Ruby was shaking her head, bubbles of laughter escaping around her mouth. Sam frowned, a horrible realisation tugging at the edges of his mind. “But, I killed Lilith. She’s dead, she can’t break the last seal, because she’s...dead.” Sam spins quickly to look at where Lilith’s body is sprawled on the floor, her blood flowing in rivulets to form a circle. Sam pales. “This is the last seal, isn’t it.”

“‘And it is written that the first demon shall be the last seal.’” Ruby quotes, “and you bust her open.”

Sam’s head was spinning. Ruby couldn’t have- she was the one person he really trusted anymore, this was wrong. But she was still stood there, grinning like the Cheshire cat as everything Sam had believed in fell down around him. “But, you, how could you do this?”

“You don’t even know how difficult this was for me! Every demon out there thought I was a traitor, but they were so wrong,” she began pacing back and forth by the door, “I was the best, the most loyal, and I got Azazel’s poster child to free Lucifer. This is the single best day of my entire existence.”

“So, you’ve just been lying to me this whole time? All of it, the support, helping me, it was all for this? For nothing?” Sam shouts, horrified, terrified, and hurt as Hell. He feels like burning hot needles are being jabbed into him all over, and every word from Ruby just drives them in deeper.

“And the best part is, you can’t even kill me now. Even after I gave you all that blood and all that training, all this rage inside you right now, I bet you can’t do it. Go ahead and try.” She stops in front of Sam and opens her arms wide, challenging. Sam tries. He pulls his power together, finding the demon of Ruby and straining, pulling, curling his hand into a fist. His hand shakes with effort and his breathing becomes laboured and nothing happens. “See, you can’t do it. You care about me, even after all this. I’m just going to go ahead and say it, right now, I am invincible.”

“Well I don’t know about that,” the bouncy voice of Metatron materialises along with his figure, stood directly behind Ruby. Sam sees her expression turn shocked as she spins in place to face him. Metatron merely smiles. “From where I’m standing, you look very much in mortal danger.” He raises his hand and presses his palm to her forehead, emitting a great glowing light where they touch. Ruby falls to the floor, face to the ground, and Metatron harrumphs. “They usually scream. I bet if it was _Castiel_ she would have screamed. Everyone screams for him, but for me? No,” Metatron mutters to himself, then looks up at Sam. “Did you at least appreciate my dramatic timing there?”

Sam looks from Metatron to the apparently dead body of Ruby, to the spiralling blood pattern on the floor, and says, “Can you just get us out of here? Now?”

Metatron sighs. “Humans. Never happy, are you.” He taps Sam on the forehead with his fingers, and he opens his eyes lying on the carpet at Bobby’s place.

Bobby sits up quickly, darting a glance at the sleeping John on the couch before quietly asking, “Well? Could you stop it?” Sam shakes his head, and then feels his eyes well with tears. Bobby starts, getting up and kneeling on the carpet next to Sam where he cries uncontrollably. “Hey, come on now, it’s not the,” Bobby begins, but then stops and snorts, “Okay maybe it is the end of the world, but that don’t mean that it still can’t turn out alright. If there’s anything I’ve learned from being a hunter all these years, is that there is always a way out.”

“But it’s,” Sam sniffs, pretty sure his face is red and streaked already but there’s nothing he can do about it. He doesn’t deserve Bobby’s comfort, though, not after what he’s done, what he became. “It’s my fault Bobby. It’s always my fault. Mom died for me, Dean died for me, and now the whole world is going to die and it’s all my fault.”

Bobby doesn’t have an answer for that, because he probably agrees somewhere in that gruff, bearded heart of his. He just pulls Sam into a hug and lets him bury his face in his shoulder and cry.


	6. A little more unbelievable

 

They fall into a routine in the two months that follow Lucifer rising. Bobby, Sam and John research through the night, looking for some way to reverse the Apocalypse. They find the tiniest possibility, and all feel like maybe, just this once, things might work out for them, that they might win this thing yet. And then, it doesn’t work. The world stays just as screwed up as it was before. Sam and John have a screaming match while Bobby drinks scotch in his armchair and then they all go to bed dejected. Rinse and repeat.

Sometimes Sam picks up the Colt, now stored in a dark corner of Bobby’s basement and wonders if he’d need it, more than a regular gun if he ever really had to. Maybe the demons blood had permanently altered his system. Maybe it still is altering him. He still had a few bottles, taken from the old barn on a night when the chatter in his head got too much, the shake in his hands, in his head. The blood calls to him all the time, hidden in the cooler he borrowed and stashed under the bed in his room. He doesn’t think John and Bobby know. He hopes they don’t. He doesn’t want them to think any worse of him than they already did. The runaway who started the Apocalypse. Anyway, he always puts the gun back. He has too much to make up for to put himself out just yet.

Then the Horsemen show up. Bobby gets a long, angry phone call from Ellen Harvelle about _giving them a heads up when the damn Apocalypse is going down after all the years they’ve spent together_ , followed by her sending a package containing a supposedly cursed gold ring to the house. A few days later, they get one from Rufus, along with a rambling letter written in almost illegible chicken scratch saying something along the lines of ‘naked hugs from grown men’ and how ‘too much Johnny Walker Blue Label is bad for the wallet’.

“I don’t know why they keep sending me these weird ass finds, they have their own curse boxes,” Bobby grumbles, stashing the second ring on a hastily cleared shelf next to the first. “What am I supposed to do with Horseman’s Rings?”

“They’re just trying to show they care, Bobby,” Sam teases, looking up at him from his book, “Nothing says I love you better than a cursed object.”

“I’d much prefer a box of chocolates, if it’s all the same,” Bobby snipes back, then there’s a pause. If this were an earlier time, Dean would fill that gap. As it is, the silence carries until the pages around them flutter to signify Metatron’s arrival. The three hunters sigh collectively.

“What do you want?” Sam asked, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to talk until someone asked and the angel was practically sparkling with a desire to do so.

“Well,” Metatron said, “while you’ve all been busy little bees here, trying and failing to stop the Apocalypse, I, hard worker that I am, have found this for you!” He produces a ring from the trench coat’s pocket- silver with a green stone. He holds it up and raises his bushy eyebrows, nodding around at them all as if expecting a round of applause.

Sam opts to bite the bullet again, “What are we supposed to do with a ring? Propose to the Devil?”

“What? No,” Metatron sounded distressed, “It’s part of the key, one of the Horseman Rings. Pestilence.”

“What do you mean, key?” John joins, putting his book down to study Metatron fully.

“The key! To open the door to the cage and push Lucifer back in. Didn’t Gabriel tell you? Wait,” Metatron holds up a hand, counting under his breath, then blinks, surprise spreading across his face in a wave, “I cut him, he tends to make things a little more unbelievable than I’d like. Well, not to worry,” Metatron says looking worried, “I’m sure we can still make it with a little bit of elbow grease. Besides, everyone loves the underdog, right? Although I’ve always felt that-”

“Metatron,” John interrupts before he can get too far off target, “What did you want us to do with the ring?”

“Right! Yes, the ring. Thing is, if you get all four Horsemen rings, you can temporarily make a gateway back into the Cage. All you need to do from there is find some way to get Lucifer back in there. However, generally, the best way to do that is...from the inside.” With that, Metatron vanishes, leaving only the ring spinning on the edge of Bobby’s desk. Sam, John and Bobby watch it until it stops.

“I think we could do it,” Sam says, looking up at the other two. “We already have three of the rings, there’s only one more.”

“Sam,” John replies with a sigh, “It isn’t the rings that are worrying me. It’s you throwing your life away for some crazy idea.”

Sam snorts, incredulous, “Yeah, because you would never, right?”

“I didn’t say that, I said I don’t want you to do it.”

“Because you don’t trust me, right? You don’t think I could handle myself?” Sam says bitterly, quickly gearing up for a fight.

“Against the Devil? No, I don’t think so. We can’t just give you to Lucifer on a silver tray, it’s not going to happen.”

Sam grits his teeth, then stops to think past the next barb. His dad wasn’t going to go back on this decision after he’d already fought about it. Sam wasn’t going to go back on his point either, but that was because he knows this has a chance. Yeah, it may be a risk, but what other choices did they have? Sam had already saved the world once with his strength of will. Or, he’d thought he did. He still had the training though, he could do it. He just had to make the argument about something else, until John forgets about the beginning.

Sam sighs petulantly, “If Dean was here he’d believe in me. He knows me better than you ever did, he’d know I can do this.”

John bristled, “Dean’s opinion doesn’t matter right now, not in this.”

“Aw, I’m so hurt, dad,” comes a voice from the kitchen, and the three of them startle, jumping to their feet and grabbing their guns. The voice doesn’t speak again until they slowly advance into the kitchen. Sat on a counter, smirking like the cat that got not only the cream, but also a whole pantry full of mice, was Dean. Dean, with green eyes, a flannel shirt and fingers wrapped in rings.

Sam can’t speak, mouthing words that never come to fruition. Dean was back? Like dad was? But how is that possible? And then the truth- Dean winks at Sam and his eyes fill with black. Sam tightens his grip on his gun. Some demon was possessing his brother’s corpse somehow and had come back to taunt them. “Get out of my brother,” Sam says dangerously, raising his gun to point at the demon’s heart.

The demon’s grin widened, “Aw, c’mon Sammy, don’t recognise your own sibling? What about from this side,” he turned his head and puckered his lips, then laughs lightly, “It’s me, Sam. I’m sure I could tell you a whole bunch of sordid secrets for you to believe it, but I don’t think Bobby or dad would want to hear about that.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, never wavering from his stand, “Or I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Rip me from my body and send me down to Hell? But I thought you needed to drink demon’s blood for that? Oops,” Dean raises a hand to his mouth in faux surprise, as John and Bobby share concerned looks, “They weren’t supposed to know about that, my mistake Sam. It’s the talk of Hell so I figured you’d have told them by now.” He kicks the cupboard door with his heels, like a child. In fact, those cupboards already had countless scuffmarks against them higher up where Dean had sat there and kicked as a kid. Sam remembers Bobby telling him to knock it off, and he would, for about ten minutes until he’d start it up again. Bobby doesn’t tell him to knock it off this time.

Instead, he cocks his .45 and shoots Dean in the chest. The rhythm of kicking doesn’t even pause. “It’s lovely to-” six more shots cut Dean off, and he pulls a face, mouth flattening into a thin line, “you done? It’s lovely to see you too, Bobby, you haven’t changed a bit. Which is convenient, since you told me where all your devil traps are.” He pulls a bullet from his chest, flicking it onto the counter, splattering it with droplets of blood.

Sam’s gaze follows it, and Dean notices, “Oh I’m sorry, did you want to drink some of that? Don’t worry I got plenty of blood.”

“Dean,” John says, speaking for the first time since they came into the room, “if you don’t shut your trap right now, I will personally make sure you never open that mouth again.”

“Ah, my dear old dad,” Dean’s grin comes back in full force as he rounds on John, “How was Hell for you? Sure was torturous right?”

John stiffens, then growls, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dean bursts out laughing, “Oh, that is rich. Don’t tell me you don’t remember. All those souls on the table, that’s not something you just forget about, dad. I would know, I’ve done the same.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, feeling left behind by the conversation, “What does he mean, dad?”

“Doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it,” John grunts and Sam sighs, relaxing his gun and turning to John, “Sam!” John barks, “You don’t stop pointing guns at demons to have a heart-to-heart!”

“It’s not like shooting him has any effect anyway, he could leave if he wanted,” Sam sensibly points out, “What does he mean about souls, tell me.”

“Maybe you should tell me about this demon blood idea and then we can talk about souls,” John says, frustrating and obstinate as usual.

Bobby mutters out the side of his mouth, not taking his eyes off Dean for a second, “Maybe you should both stow your crap and leave the family meeting until _after_ the demon is gone.”

Dean chuckles, “Normally I’d agree there Bobby, but unfortunately, that can’t happen. Because when I leave, I’m taking Sammy here with me.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Bobby says, stepping to shield Sam from Dean, raising his gun again. Dean hums.

“Hmmm, I think he will though. See, I have something you guys need,” so saying, he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out an ornate ring with a black stone. “You want Death’s ring, you give me Sam. Quid Pro Quo my friends.”

Sam considered it. This had been his plan anyway, right? Get all the rings and say yes to Lucifer, then jump in the Cage with him. Dea- the demon was probably going to try and get him to be Lucifer’s vessel anyway. It just feels wrong because it’s Dean’s voice saying it. Trusting demons hadn’t worked out well for Sam before, but maybe, maybe this time would be different. It’s not just a demon he met off the street, this is Dean, his brother. He’d pulled Dean back from possession from worse. Maybe he could do it again.

John insists that there’s no way on Earth they would ever, ever trade Sam for something a demon just claims to be Death’s ring, but Dean is looking only at Sam, knowingly. “I don’t know what you think you’re planning, but if you think my son’s life is worth so little to me-”

“I’ll do it,” Sam interrupts, ignoring John’s furious sputter. “It’s the only way we can get the ring, and we need it.”

“But you can’t-”

“I can’t what, dad? Make my own choices? Live my own life?” Sam scoffs, “You’re so full of it! I’ve already done so many things normal people can’t. I’ve saved people for so long, doesn’t that give me a little credibility in saving the world?”

“Last time you thought you were going to save the world, you started the Apocalypse!”

Dean chuckles from the counter, grinning when they all glared at him. “Sorry, it’s just, did nobody tell you what the first seal was? Today sure has some grand revelations in store huh. In every sense of the word. The first seal was broken when the Righteous Man, that’s you dad by the way, tortured his first soul in Hell. So I mean if we’re being technical here, Sam didn’t start the Apocalypse. You did.”

John seems to turn to stone at these words, breathing heavy enough that Sam can hear it from the other side of Bobby. It doesn’t change things much for Sam. Sure, Lilith wasn’t the only one to blame for how it started, whatever, but that doesn’t absolve Sam of any guilt in letting Lucifer free. That’s all on him. He uses John’s shock against him anyway. “I’m going with him,” Sam says, but his dad doesn’t seem to be listening. Sam makes his way past Bobby to go stand next to Dean, but Bobby grabs his arm. He looks conflicted. “Bobby you’re not going to change my mind,” Sam says, but Bobby shakes his head.

“I know I can’t. Never been able to convince a Winchester of anything, you stubborn fools,” Bobby pulls Sam into a tight hug. “Good luck Sam.” Sam nods, pulling back and looking over at his dad. John wasn’t looking at any of them, staring at the wall silently. Wherever he’d gone, he wasn’t coming back for a while.

“Well isn’t that just so sweet,” Dean says, hopping off the counter and gripping Sam’s arm tight enough to hurt, “I would have been just as happy with making you come with me, but this is a lot easier don’t you think? Just you and me, together again, respecting each other’s choices,” Dean laughs again, loud and harsh, “Team Free Will, baby!”

\--

John wanders the lot after Dean, or some twisted parody of Dean, took Sam away and left the ring. Bobby’s with his books again, reading up on how to join them together and open the Cage. It isn’t going to work, though. John knows, unequivocally, that Sam isn’t ready to overpower Lucifer, if he ever would be. He was too volatile, the smallest spark could set off a volcano. No, John was absolutely definite that Sam’s plan would fail and the world would burn for it. So now the only thing left was to try and stop him.

He looks up into the clear, mid-afternoon sky and calls out, “Michael. I’m ready.” A wash of contentment flows over John, like a gentle stream- and then the pain comes and it is all consuming. He tries to scream but he can’t, it’s not his mouth. He’d crumple to the ground but he was held up by legs of steel.

“I’m glad you, made this choice,” Michael says with John’s mouth, the words sounding stilted and off tempo, as if Michael hadn’t spoken in a long time. “It was the right one.”


	7. Family

Dean takes him to the barn. Of course he does, Sam thinks bitterly, of course they go to a place steeped in memories of Ruby and training and blood. He pushes Sam to sit down on the chair, still there from training, and ties him to it, tight. With the big doors shut and the lights off, it’s dark in the barn, despite it being the afternoon. Dean sets up a circle of candles around himself, lighting them with a wave of his right hand, then sits cross-legged inside it, settling a bowl in front of him.

“Dean,” Sam says, deciding to appeal to the possibility of his brother still being in there, “Dean if you can hear me, you’ll be okay I promise. I don’t care what you did in Hell, I can help you, find a cure, we’re family-”

“Family?” Dean leers, the flash of his teeth looking ghostly in the dim candle light, “Some family. You remember how daddy dearest was literally about to kill me right? But yeah sure, I’ll bite. What exactly do you think will happen if _your_ Dean gets back with the power of,” Dean waves a hand limply through the air mockingly, “creepy co-dependent brotherly love or whatever. You think I’d want to stick around with you after this?”

Sam says nothing. His hands curl into fists where they’re fixed against his sides.

Dean laughs, “You really think I would? Really. Decades trapped in Hell to bring your scrawny ass back to life and you think I’d still like you enough to put up with your constant whining?” His voice goes up to a mocking falsetto, “Aw Dean, I don’t want to have these visions, Dean, do you think Ruby likes me or does she _like_ me like me, Dean, you should give her a chance Dean,” the laugh came again, hot scorn dripping through Sam’s ears and down through his ribcage like wax. “I hate to break it to you Sam, but the original Dean would never approve of your little Ruby affair, even if you’d told him just how happy you were sucking her blood like the monster you are. He probably would have ganked you on the spot. Hell, he might even do that now, with how far you’ve gone Darkside.”

Sam grits his teeth. He knows he’s being goaded, but he can’t help being hurt by the truth. He takes a shaky breath, and forces out: “Dean can do whatever he wants after this. I know, I’m a freak, I’m a disappointment, a monster, whatever. I just want my brother back.”

“Well too bad,” Dean sits back, flicking his eyes to black. Sam can see reflections of the tiny candle flames in them. “Your brother as you knew him is gone. I’m the only Dean left.”

He already knew it, of course, but it still hit Sam like a punch to the gut. To hear it out loud- from the same voice that used to tell him everything would be okay- it was too much. Sam’s breath comes shallower and he looks away from the demon that was everything left of his brother, focussing instead on the bowl in front of it. It’s green, slightly chipped. Full of blood. Sam feels a wave of nausea and looks at a candle instead.

“So,” Sam says, his valiant effort to sound calm not quite succeeding. His strength wavers with the candle flame, “if you’re not Dean anymore, what do you want with me?”

Sam hears the pout in the demon’s voice as it replied, “Weren’t you listening to me? I _am_ Dean, just not the cute and cuddly one you know and love. Still very much the smart Winchester though. And I’ve been doing some thinking,” another unnerving flash of teeth from Dean, masquerading as a smile. “There’s a surprisingly long time to think while you’re trapped in eternal torment. Really helps cultivate all that lovely resentment for the one that landed you in there. See, at first, I thought it was my fault. The old self-hate route is a very popular path downstairs; you should just see it in the spring-”

“Is there a point coming along any time soon?” Sam interrupts, stealing himself to look back up at Dean’s face. Its eyes had turned human again, which was easier to confront. Dean had been under enough enchantments that Sam was almost used to looking for the enemy and finding his brother’s face staring right back.

“Well, excuse me for trying to add a little drama to the grand reveal. Try to make this kidnapping a fun and educational experience for you, and what do I get for it? Constant criticism.” Sam glares silently until Dean sighs heavily. “Fine, fine, I’ll give you the Spark notes version. First I blamed myself for being such a terrible older brother by getting ripped apart by hellhounds to save your worthless life. Then I blamed dad, mom, Bobby , you, that kindergarten teacher who gave me a B- on what was clearly an A+ piece of macaroni art. Then I realised that I was thinking too small. It wasn’t about who got me personally sent down the rabbit hole. It’s about who _dug_ the rabbit hole.”

Dean’s eyes shutter black again, and he leans towards Sam over the bowl. He isn’t smiling anymore and the darkness of the room swarms around him, pulling his features into sharp angles.

“I want to go back to the ones that started all this. And since God seems to be MIA, I’ll take the next best thing.”

Sam’s mind races along with his pulse. “Michael and Lucifer,” Sam whispers.

“Wow Sammy, I can see how you got into college. Of course Mike and Luci, who else? I’m going to destroy them just like they destroyed my soul.”

“But-” Sam shakes his head, “nothing kills them. Not even the colt could do that.”

Dean throws back his head and laughs. It sends a chill down Sam’s spine. Every instinct is telling him to run, his muscles tensed up enough to hurt but he can’t move. He’s supernaturally held in place to listen as the echoes of the laugh bounce first around the room and then around Sam’s skull. “You mortals. Ever the pessimists. Death isn’t what I want to give them. That’s not half so much fun.”

“Then what?” Sam asks.

“I want to make them pay, for everything that has ever happened to me. It’s all on them,” Dean shakes suddenly, furiously, his hands forming fists over his crossed, twitching legs, “this whole mess is their fault. So I’m going to make them live through the apocalypse, just like I had to live my whole damn life.”

Dean was losing focus on him, too caught up in his rage. A plan was forming on the edges of Sam’s mind, a way to escape. A way to harness the power in the room, in himself, the way Ruby taught him to, and use it to change everything. First thing’s first though, Sam has to find a way to move. Distracting him from the only person in the room shouldn’t be too hard right? He’d talked his way out of worse scrapes before. “But how,” Sam asks, “how are you going to do that? They’re angels, they’re the strongest angels. They have all of Heaven and Hell backing them, what are you going to do to take them down?”

“What, you think your girlfriend Ruby is the only one who picked up a little spell craft?” Dean scoffs, “Always underestimating your big brother aren’t you Sammy. I tortured enough witches in the Pit to steal a few tips. I’ve been preparing for this for months. All I needed was Michael and Lucifer to be in vessels on Earth at the same time, and the blood of two potential vessels. And today is my lucky day.”

Sam chokes out a surprised laugh, “Dad would never agree to be Michael’s vessel.”

“Aw, come on Sammy, you think John could live with himself after you ran off with a demon _again_? Michael didn’t even need to say please.”

\--

Bobby looks up from the rings at the sound of Metatron’s arrival. Metatron does little to hide his excitement, “Time for the big day then. How do I look?”

“Like a clown,” Bobby mutters, scooping the rings into his coat pocket, “John say yes to Michael then?” Metatron dips his head sanctimoniously, and Bobby sighs, “Yeah sounds like something that idjit would do. Well come on then, may as well open the cage anyway. For whatever good it’d do us.”


	8. The Spell

 

“Even if dad has said yes,” Sam says, “What about Lucifer? I’m the only one who could possibly be his vessel, and I haven’t agreed to anything from him.” A quick panic sears through Sam- because what if he’s wrong, what if drinking all that demon’s blood counted as consent to Lucifer, what if he’d doomed the world by mistake yet again and he’d watch the Devil destroy the Earth and feel the blood on his hands, what if he doesn’t get a chance to even try to change how the story goes-

“So self-centred Sammy,” Dean counters, rolling his eyes, breaking into Sam’s worries, “but then you always did put yourself first right? Running away to college rather than helping me and dad save people.”

“Answer the question,” Sam’s voice is steady despite the fears slicing at his insides. He hopes nothing is showing through his practiced neutral expression. “What about Lucifer?”

“Wow, touchy much. What don’t like spending time with your big brother anymore? Or is that why you left the first time? Come on Sammy, I’ll tell mine if you tell yours.”

Sam sighs, but it feels more like a growl. “I left because I couldn’t stay there anymore. If I’d stayed I would have ended up turning into dad’s little soldier, and I hated the idea of that. There were days when I hated him, I wished he was gone, that he’d leave one day and never come back. I didn’t ever want to become like him, he made me so angry, all the time,” Sam feels his voice crack, and takes a few breaths. He’s losing his composure and Dean is clearly enjoying it if the cocky smirk on his face is anything to go by, “But I guess that ended up happening anyway huh.”

“Aww, poor widdle Sammy,” he taunts, “Can’t keep a lid on his tiny baby tantrums can he?”

Sam snaps his head up to glare at Dean. “What. About. Lucifer.”

Dean rolls his eyes again, “Fine. Remember Adam? He’s of the bloodline too.”

Sam wrinkles his brow, confused, “Adam’s dead, in Heaven. How would the Devil even get to him?”

Dean laughs softly, like he used to when a monster had walked right into their trap, and Sam’s chest aches with loss. “The pearly gates aren’t quite as impenetrable as your little angel friend might have you think, Sammy, especially not with the uproar over the apocalypse going down. Things have been a little messy up there recently, and someone left a back door open. What did you think Lucifer was doing right after your whole ‘open the cage’ thing happened? Sitting around lining up his pitchfork collection? He had to get his contingency plan in place, just in case something knocked you out of the ring. “

Sam’s heart sinks. Not only had their half of the family got Adam killed, now the kid had a front row seat to the biggest battle in history. Sam remembers his envy of Adam’s normal-ish life and feels horribly guilty. Well, guiltier.

“And hey, speaking of knocking you out of the running for being Lucifer’s prom dress,” Dean continues, reaching behind him for a knife, “I’m going to need that blood of yours now.”

The knife blade is stained slightly purple from the berries and herbs tied along the rough, wooden handle. Sam knows his knives, and while usually he would insist that knives themselves are merely tools, and how one uses said tool determines the morality of the act, this particular knife looked like it would rob a charity shop for kicks and spend the money on cigarettes to give out to innocent school children. Sam can’t suppress a shudder at the idea of it touching him. It practically radiates evil intent.

“Thought you hated witchcraft, Dean,” Sam tries, struggling to look anything but horrified at the sight of the blade.

Dean grins, twirling the knife from hand to hand, “Hey! You called me Dean! That’s the spirit Sammy. Anyway, while witches are gross and disgusting, but really, I’m hardly one to judge at this point. Torture in Hell is one messy business. Besides,” Dean stopped playing with the knife, his expression turning serious, “I hate Michael and Lucifer even more.”

Dean tugs his shirts off and makes a long, deep cut along his chest, catching the blood in the bowl. He stills, seemingly caught, staring right through Sam. This was his chance, Sam knows, and stars working his way out of his bounds. The knots were solid, but Dean had left a loose loop. Sam knows, because he remembers when they were learning this knot, Dean had been distracted by getting into Star Wars, and had snuck out to go see them rather than practice.

The Dean on the floor’s eyes had started glowing red, his arms straight by his sides. A red light shines at the back of his head too, forming a strange sort of red halo. Either the spell had begun, or had gone wrong. Dean starts to shake, muscles tight and painful looking. Sam finds the loose part and pulls, unravelling the knot in five quick tugs, just as Dean blinks back into himself. He picks up the bowl and the knife, smiling creepily again.

His eyes still have red points within the black, and the Halo moves with his head as he stands and walks to Sam. “It has a bit of a kick, but I’m sure you’ll be fine, Sam. Maybe.” Dean raises the knife to Sam’s chest.

Sam tries one last time, “You don’t have to do this, Dean, you don’t need to get revenge just, come back to me.”

Dean shakes his head with a smile, “Thanks for the offer Sammy, but this is who I am. I choose to do this.”

“Fine,” Sam says, reaching out with his power and his hands, “Then I choose to stop you.”

He finds the twisted soul inside Dean’s body and forces it up. It’s fogged by the spell, but Sam fights it, pulling and straining. The halo fades and Dean screams as Sam wrenches the spirit from his body and holds it between his hands. It writhes and twists but Sam keeps hold of it. The shell that was Dean falls to the floor, knocking the bowl with it. As soon as the bowl hits the floor, it shatters, and the world rushes sideways, until Sam finds himself in a graveyard, his brother’s smoky soul in his hands and the rest of his family set about in a standoff.


	9. Deus Ex Machina

Michael roars. Lucifer holds his ground. “Why must you always insist on being like this, Lucifer?” Michael asks, “Just give up, you know you’re going to lose. That’s not even your intended vessel.”

“You just wish you could get in and out of Hell so easily as I did Heaven to get this vessel,” Lucifer spits, “It took your whole Host years to reach his sorry soul, and I found my way through your Gates in less than two months.”

“Why do you never just stay in Hell? Then we wouldn’t have to do this ridiculous fight over and over.”

“Why do you never just accept that I’m right! You care no more for humanity than I do, brother, it is unjustified for our Father to expect us to love these stinking meat bags more than we love Him.”

“Following His orders is what we’re made for!” Michael says, throwing the first punch which rocks Lucifer back on his heels.

Lucifer is quick to retaliate, raining fists onto Michael, both of them kicking and scrapping until they have their blades to each other’s throats. “It’s nothing personal, Michael,” Lucifer says, digging his knife in slightly, “I do love you.”

“And I you, Lucifer,” Michael returns. “This is just the way it has to be.”

“Hey!” comes a voice from the sparse trees. The angels both turn to see two middle aged, portly men hurrying towards them down the hill. The one in front, who has a greying beard and wears a trench coat, calls out again when they get close enough to not need to shout to be heard, “Where is Sam Winchester?”

“Sam was hidden from me,” Lucifer says, stepping back from Michael to avoid stabbing him by accident. When they fight, it has to be deliberate, or there’s no point. “I used another vessel.”

“ Who are you,” Michael says, glaring, “that dares interrupt a fight between the highest of angels.”

“Well I was going to say that I am but a humble seraph but,” the man shakes his head, looking dejected, almost as if he’s about to cry “If Sam isn’t here too there’s no point to any of this. I can’t leave a Winchester out of Hell, that wouldn’t work.”

“What?” The man next to him says, “What in the Hell are you talking about Metatron?”

“This whole plan, all this effort, all for nothing,” Metatron says sadly, then he glares suddenly at Lucifer, “All because you couldn’t wait to have your great big fight. This is what happens when you rush things! Important plot gets skipped over, it was all in place for you but no!” Metatron throws his arms out to the side, eyes wide and manic, “You just had to go and make up your own silly little subplot didn’t you! Now it’s all a huge mess, and Sam isn’t even-”

Sam staggers suddenly into being with a sharp snapping noise, stood next to the man in the baseball cap and holding a ball of smoke.

Everyone stares at him, as Sam looks around, slack jawed and shocked. He takes stock of the situation, then stands up tall. “Bobby,” he says out the side of his mouth, “you...have the rings right?”

“Yes,” Bobby says, looking nonplussed, “But how are you going to-”

“There’s no time to explain,” Sam says, watching Lucifer and Michael with a shaky bravery in his eyes “just throw them and maybe take a few steps back.”

Bobby sighs and pats his shoulder, “You’re damn crazy, but for some dumb reason I trust you. Just hope this doesn’t end up biting us in the ass.”

Bobby throws the rings onto the dry ground and walks back. The rings open a burning portal, dizzyingly deep and impossible to look into without your eyes itching and fingers twitching, your body pushing you away from it even without knowing that it leads to the Cage.

Michael claps slowly. “Congratulations, Sam Winchester, you opened the door. A neat little party trick. Now what are you going to do with it? We’re hardly going to walk in of our own volition.”

“No, you’re not,” Sam agrees, “I’m going to make you.”

“Make us?” Lucifer repeats, smirking widely, “You have no power over us. We’re not demons, Sam, we’re angels. We are more powerful than anything you’ve ever known.”

“No,” Sam raises the pulsing ball of smoke, “But can understand why you’d think that. You’ve never fought against me _and_ my brother.” Without further ado, Sam forces the demon smoke into his mouth. He keeps one hand over his mouth and nose and convulses, clutching his chest with the other hand. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, then opens them, blinking rapidly as their colours flick from hazel to black, finally settling on a faded grey with a brown smudge of iris in the centre.

He lifts a hand and grips, and Lucifer can feel it, the raw crackling power surrounding him. Lucifer casts around widely for something to hold onto as he feels his feet slide towards the Cage, but all he finds is his brother, also being dragged towards it. He twists and tries to get out of Sam’s hold on him, but he can’t, it’s too powerful. “I made you Sam! I gave you this power, you can’t do this!” He shouts.

“But I can,” says Sam, holding them suspended over the pit in a mighty grasp, “You gave me this power, but I own it and I can choose what to do with it. And I choose this.” He opens his palm and lets them drop, and Lucifer doesn’t see anything for a very long time.

\--

With the portal closed over again, Sam falls to his knees and chokes. Bobby hurries back to his side, patting his back to aid, well, whatever was happening. “You did good kid,” Bobby says, smiling warily at Sam’s watery eyes when he looks up, “You just saved the whole world.”

“Yes, yes, congratulations to Sam,” Metatron says, folding his arms moodily, “But what am I supposed to do now? So much work! Wasted! Pulling you imbeciles out of whatever stupid plan you got tied up in, killing this timeline’s Castiel, speeding up the breaking of the seals into just five days? Five days! That took some major reworking of the grand plan. And yet here we are! A Winchester out in the open!”

Sam coughs again, some black smoke escaping from his mouth. His voice is hoarse when he says, “You were working against us from the start, wanting all of us in Hell.”

“Yes! How else am I supposed to punish Castiel? He destroyed my life! Stopped my story! So I came back here to mess up his one. But _obviously_ , that hasn’t worked,” Metatron sighs. “If only Cas had fallen in with a less _difficult_ set of humans.”

Bobby pulls The Colt from his back pocket, and points it dead at Metatron’s head. “I don’t know very much about this Cas guy you keep talking about,” he says, taking off the safety with a click, “but I do know that no one messes with my family and lives to tell the tale.”

He shoots, the bullet going straight into Metatron’s forehead. Metatron clutches his chest, rocking back and forth, then falls to the ground, a single hand outstretched and stops moving. Bobby turns back to Sam, “Now-”

“Just kidding!” Metatron springs up with a little bounce and dusts off his trench coat industriously. “Unfortunately for you, the Scribe of God is one of the five creatures in the universe that gun doesn’t work on. Shame really, it would be fitting for the two best friends of the family to die at each other’s hands on the very grave of the broken brothers but,” Metatron shrugs jovially, apparently over his tirade about foiled plans, “I’m functionally invincible.”

“Not from where I’m standing,” A gravelly voice says from behind Metatron. Metatron twists and spins out to look at the man, who Bobby can now see has a shock of unruly black hair, intense blue eyes and is holding a silver blade, identical to the ones now in the Cage with Michael and Lucifer. Before Metatron has any response other than shock, the man drives the blade into Metatron’s chest. A white light spreads from the blade, and when Metatron falls to the grass, six shadowy wings burn into the grass around him. The man wipes his blade on the grass and slides it back into his sleeve, before walking directly to Sam, still coughing.

He crouches next to him, and says, “Sam. I have an idea of how to help, but I’ll have to reach into you and disentangle your soul from your brother’s. It will hurt, a lot, but it needs to be done.” Sam stares at him, eyes cloudy with grey, clearly struggling to focus.

“Are you,” Sam interrupts himself with more coughing, eyes getting darker with every blink, “Are you Castiel?”

The man nods, quirking his mouth into a barely there smile. “I prefer Cas, these days. It’s more...personal.”

“Okay, Cas, you do what you gotta do. Whatever it takes to save Dean. His body’s in, in a barn, I don’t know how to get there from here. And I don’t think I can stand up.” Cas nods again, putting one arm across Sam’s back and the other under his knees. He stands, holding Sam effortlessly despite Sam’s greater height.

“I can find him. Are you coming Bobby?” Castiel turns to Bobby, his brow furrowed. “I know you are more cautious with your trust than Sam or Dean, but I assure you I mean you no-”

Bobby waves his hand, “If you’re the Castiel that Metatron kept banging on about, then I’ll bet you’re a stand up guy. Not like I got any other way to get back home anyways.”

Cas smiled again, and reached forward to touch Bobby’s forehead with one hand, jostling Sam over to hold him with one arm. “It’s good to see you again Bobby.”

\--

Sam’s lungs burn and his whole body aches. Every breath he takes seems to be lined with razorblades, and his body seems full to be breaking apart at the seams. There’s too much in here for one body, Sam knows, or maybe Dean knows.

He keeps getting memories that aren’t his, filling his head and his heart completely, memories of screaming souls, of watching himself sat at a bus stop through the rear view mirror, _trippy,_ comes a thought but it isn’t Sam’s. It hurts, choking on an overflowing soul over and over, hurts them both. _It’s going to be okay_. Sam doesn’t know which of them thinks it but it’s his body that convulses when he feels something else coming in through his stomach. There’s no space, not anywhere, Sam is going to explode from the overflowing people in his body. He screams through his wrecked throat and it hurts, it _hurts_ , it-

It’s over. Sam feels a hand brush over his head and the pain is gone. He opens his eyes and sits up, wincing until he realised nothing hurts. They’re in the barn again, but the doors are open, letting in the early evening sun. It’s only been a few hours, Sam realizes, dizzy with the realisation.

Bobby appears next to Sam and hands him a glass of water, which Sam takes gratefully. He sips it as he looks around for Castiel, and spots him crouched next the wooden chair, leaning over what must be Dean’s body and lit from something below him. “What’s he doing?” Sam asks Bobby, nodding his head to Castiel.

“He’s been healing Dean’s soul, apparently,” Bobby says tiredly. “Apparently if we looked at what he’s doing then our eyes would burn out like Pam’s did.”

Sam nods, then snorts, “Two heads are better than one. That woman deserves a medal.”

“Hey, if anyone deserves a medal here, it’s me for spending so much time with you idjits.”

Sam laughs, and then there’s a groan from the corner. Castiel stands and offers a smile to Dean, who is moving and sitting up. Sam scrambles to his feet and races across the room, skidding to a stop in front of Dean, closely followed by Bobby.

Dean’s eyes are a clear green and his smile is his own as he looks up at the them. “Hey guys,” he says, voice only slightly croaky, “did you miss me?”

And it’s not the end. Not by a long shot. There are still betrayals, deaths and wars in store for the four of them. Relationships change and plans fail. But it is an ending. It’s one that leaves Castiel, Dean, Sam and Bobby- if not happy, at least alright for the meantime. And that’s the best any of them have ever tried to have.


End file.
